


Constant Vigiliance

by cuneifire (orphan_account)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Clint approves, Crack, Gen, Humor, Natasha's just laughing in the background, Steve the absentminded Man Out of Time ft. Tony the Incredibly Annoyed Engineer, defeating villains with pizza, no one else does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 17:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuneifire
Summary: “Steve,” Tony says, “I am not going to bloody upgrade that shield ever again if all you use it for is afucking drink holder.”(Or: five times a random object was used in place of Steve’s shield, and one time Steve’s shield was used in place of a random object.)





	Constant Vigiliance

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by something I found on the kink meme, with a prompt among the lines of 'Steve keeps using other things in place of his shield'. I'd post it there, but I can't find it (and also I'm three years late, but fuck it, that's never stopped me before now has it. But the thing's also closed _and_ I have no clue how to LiveJournal, so uh, excuses. Sighs.)

 

 

  1. **A tire**



 

“Natasha!” Steve shouts, chucking his shield over the flaming food truck. A shock of red hair jumps out from the flames, and three seconds later Natasha’s a good ten meters away from him, holding the shield, her empty guns scattered on the floor.

He should probably be fighting with something. He didn’t bring guns, and he almost (key word almost) regrets that decision as their supernaturally fast bank robber drops down in front of him and runs around him in literal circles.

Then the guy runs past Natasha, and Steve’s on his feet in an instant, running over, thinking _something to throw something to defend something to neutralize with-_

He doesn’t realize he's wrenched the tire off the truck and knocked the guy out flat with it until he’s standing among the wreckage, about ten nonplussed New Yorkers giving him annoyed glares at having interrupted their usual path to work.

He just took out a superpowered criminal.

With a tire.

Natasha glances over.

“Nice,” She says, and tosses him the shield.

 

  1. **A mirror**



 

He’s fighting sans shield, and also sans pants.

Look, they said ‘urgent threat to New York’ and to Steve, the line of duty comes before anything else. Even proper dress wear.

The guy he’s fighting doesn’t seem to think so, though.

“Underwear?” He’s saying, in a high pitched tone, like he talks with only his trachea. “You’re fighting me in your _underwear?_ Am I not worth more than that?”

Vaguely, Steve wonders where on earth Natasha went. Maybe she decides to rob Fashion Disaster’s clothes instead of fighting him.

“Ten minutes ago I had no clue you even existed. We make do with what we can on such short notice,” he says, shrugging apologetically and throwing another punch, which the guy dodges by maybe half a millisecond. Steve grits his teeth. Something about waking up halfway through his sleep cycle must have done this to him, because right now he’s disoriented as all hell and he keeps _missing_ this guy, despite the fact that he's dressed about as subtlely as your average traffic pylon.

Might also have something to do with how the whole room is _filled_ with-

Okay, that’s _it_. Steve grabs the nearest surface and smashes Fashion Disaster’s head with it, throwing it repeatedly until its glassy surface is coated in blood.

Does Steve ever hate mirrors. And now he’s coated in blood.

Not to mention the fact that he’s _still_ in his tiny-rainbows-floating-on-clouds underwear.

(They were a gift. Steve does not throw away gifts, even if they were given by an obviously mocking Avengers benefactor.)

 

  1. **A sink**



 

Steve most definitely made the right call taking down SHIELD. Because _all their_ (former) _agents_ keep turning out to be (former) HYDRA agents.

Not that it would be okay if it were just one. But twenty-seven betrayals is getting a bit much.

Like this guy. He would be getting a fantastic thrashing from just about everyone on the team right now, except he’s kind of on fire. Permanently.

And he’s got Steve’s shield.

It’s taken him a while, but Steve’s figured out that sometimes the 21st century is just like that.

Theoretically, Steve could just charge in and go for the kill. The serum would let him leave with only a few singes in his hair, tops. But they were interrupted in the middle of a PR stunt and he’s pretty sure this suit costs more than he’s ever made in his life, total, and he’s reluctant to come out of the fight completely naked in front of a crowd of people who are (according to Tony) a bunch of vicious sharks ready to make a kill at the first sign of blood and (according to Natasha) people they’re supposed to impress.

They’re fighting in a bathroom, so he does the obvious thing and rips out the sink. The thing comes out of the wall easily, just as a knife pings against the porcelain and clatters to the floor. Steve grins, ready to toss it at the guy, aim for the head, because he's not covering himself very well, he clearly doesn't know how to actually fight outside of threatening pyromania, so he goes to charge in and-

The fire goes out. Steve has about three seconds to turn around to see what on earth is going on before he gets shot in the face what about twenty times the force of your average super soaker.

Oh. Yeah. Sinks have pipes. 

The whole team (or, well, him, Clint, Thor, and Natasha, who are the ones who happen to be in the room at the time) get drenched. By the time he finally gets up and just bends the pipe shut, they're all soaked. Even _Thor_ is shivering.

Except for Natasha, who just smiles at him, a dry space around her feet. Her hair is perfect.

Steve tries in vain to dry out his clothes as he goes home. It doesn’t work.

And of course, Stark is there. “Steve, this is getting a bit tragic. I understand the elderly have poor memory capacity, but it’s a giant shield with your symbol on it. You should be able to find it. Here, hand me the damned thing, I’ll fix you up some gauntlets.”

He sighs, and Steve wonders if Tony knows that’s the exact expression just about everyone wears when they have to deal with him. Steve’s labeling it ‘Fed up beyond frustration, anger possibly resolvable via pizza.’ It usually works.

 

  1. **A giant billboard proclaiming the extreme availability of New York's finest brothels**



 

He'd really prefer not to talk about this one.

 

  1. **A pizza**



 

Steve wouldn’t say he’s overall extremely attached to inanimate objects (he’s not Tony, he doesn’t talk to robots, because in his day they had a word for people who talked to themselves and let’s just say it’s not very pleasant), but he really is starting to miss his shield.

He doesn’t think that’s a particularly bizarre desire, seeing as _it keeps going missing_ and the only weapons on hand right now are- well, the cold pizza Clint ordered thirty minutes back and everyone forgot about while fighting the extremely bulky possibly nonhuman that showed up in the apartment a few minutes ago.

 _Well,_ better a pizza than nothing, Steve thinks, and grabs the box.

.

“There is not a single more American image ever to have been made.” Clint says. “Captain America, beating a petty criminal to death with a pizza. That. That is the greatest shorthand for our great country that I have ever seen. God bless America.” (Sometimes Steve wonders what he's fighting for. Apparently, this is it)

The man (turns out he was human) lies face down on the floor, covered in pizza sauce. Steve picks a piece of pepperoni off of his shoulder, thinks _hey, what the hell,_ and eats it.

Tony stares at him.

In fact, most of the team stares at him.

Clint nods in approval.

He shrugs. “What? It’s food.”

Tony sighs. “Great Depression, I curse you thee.” And shakes his fist at the sky. “Never mind gauntlets for the things, Cap, I am permanently attaching that fucking vibranium frisbee to your arm.” Steve opens his mouth, but Tony walks by him first, shoving his index finger in front of his lips.

“Shut up. You don’t get a vote.” He says, and then walks away, muttering to himself about Gorilla glue.

Steve wonders if he should be worried.

Scratch that. He is most definitely worried.

 

**+1. A drink holder**

 

“Okay, you know what. I _quit._ I fucking give up.” Tony is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “You have officially made me, Tony Stark, shorthand for The Man Who Never Quits, formally decide to throw a sock in it. Be proud of yourself, Rogers, be very _fucking_ proud of yourself.”

Steve doesn’t know why he’s so mad. All he did was offer him a drink.

“Do you hate decaf that much?” He says, tilting his head.

Tony pulls back. “What? - I mean, yes, of course I hate decaf with a fiery passion that will never be doused, but _that’s not the fucking point._ ”

“Then… what is it?”

He hears the quiet sound of Natasha snickering in the background.

“You forget your shield for the last- what, five battles we’ve had? And now, now you’re using it as a fucking drink holder. Rogers, I don’t know how they did it in the 20th century, but in our day and age when you have an incredibly valuable superweapon you don’t use it as a drink coaster!”

He storms out, a bottle of Gorilla Glue in hand.

Steve looks down, and sees, beneath the fractured refraction of his glass of water, the silvery sheen of his shield.

“Welp,” He says, looking around. “I guess I had better go apologize.”

Because team relations are important.

Almost as important as a good drink coaster, as Natasha would later say.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos & the like are always appreciated! I've never really tried much humor before, so it'd be great if people could tell me if this was actually funny (it's fine if it isn't). And I'm kind of a marvel n00b, so there's that too. Or something. ha. i have no clue what im doing.


End file.
